The ambitious project to connect Georgetown and Rosslyn via gondola is nearing its first big milestone. The Georgetown Business Improvement District (BID), which is pursuing the project as part of its sweeping Georgetown 2028 plan, hopes to have raised enough to finance a formal feasibility study of the gondola by the end of the year.

So far, BIDCEO Joe Sternlieb tells us, 65 percent of the necessary funds for the study have been raised from private donors, and a request for proposals from study consultants has already been drafted.

“We are continuing our fundraising and will release the RFP the day that all the funding in place,” Sternlieb told UrbanTurf in an email. “We have had good response from additional supporters/funders and believe that the remaining funds will be committed by the end of the year.”

UrbanTurf’s streetcar-inspired rendering of the gondola, by Capital Pixel

The gondola project is easily the boldest of the plans outlined in the Georgetown 2028 project. Funding for the feasibility study hit a snag earlier this year when it was not selected for financing by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. By that time, in July, the project had already raised about half of the funds required, or $100,000.

In addition to looking into engineering challenges, the study requires input from agencies like the Federal Aviation Administration, since it would cross a helicopter path over the river.